Tag: energy news

Poilievre promises an energy corridor to the coasts

Poilievre’s key energy policy: a National Energy Corridor for pipe, power and rail. Here’s his speech, verbatim.

The reality is, we largely have a such a corridor already from Moose Jaw to a third of the way through Ontario. It’s Quebec and New Brunswick that are the issue.

And just a couple hours after Poilievre spoke, we recorded this with Andrew Scheer:

Pipeline Online Podcast, Ep. 6: Andrew Scheer on a National Energy Corridor and a whole lot more, including tariffs, Clean Electricity Regulations and coal-fired power.

All things energy in Sask budget

All things energy in Saskatchewan Budget 2025

Pipeline Online combed through the budget so you don’t have to.

The biggest item for oil and gas is a new program meant to re-invigorate old, low producing wells by doing re-entries and drilling new legs on them of at least 500 metres. It will be interesting to see what the adoption of this program will be. I sure didn’t see it coming.

The story also does some digging into the goal of 600,000 or even 1 million barrels of oil production per day, and what the budget forecasts, which is essentially flat until 2029. There’s a big discrepancy  there. Guess I better get back to working on my Reaching for a Million series and pump the ministry full of ideas before the next budget cycle.

On Friday I will publish the NDP response.

Nuclear supply chain being developed in Saskatchewan, tariffs

Westinghouse in SK, Part 3: Westinghouse signs MOUs with six Saskatchewan companies

BIG NEWS: Westinghouse in SK, Part 3: Westinghouse signs MOUs with six Saskatchewan companies. When they say modular, they mean modular.

Despite Thursday’s partial tariff reprieve, Saskatchewan still cutting off US alcohol sales and procurement. This story is moving so fast, I had to update it twice before publishing. It might be out of date by Friday morning.

South Bow says tariffs could create challenges in its marketing segment (this is the spin-off company from TC Energy that operates Keystone Pipeline)

ROK Resources releases 2025 budget guidance, CEO discuss possible tariff impacts

About that pipeline…

Keystone XL pipe, in 2011, that was never used. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

Trump calls once again for Keystone XL pipeline to be built

There is no project. There is no company behind it. TransCanada split into two companies. The team scattered to the winds. There is no pipe, and if there is any left, do not let it be put into the ground because it’ll be so rotten it’ll leak like a sieve. And there’s no one making pipe these days at Evraz, although such a project would surely be welcome there.

And why they hell would we lock even more into the American market at a forever discount? If we’re going to build pipe, build it to tidewater.

OR – is this they key to getting Trump to back off on tariffs?

Be careful what you wish for, Weyburn

Brian Zinchuk: In opposing a wind project, Weyburn might want to be careful what they wish for

It was right around the time a man walked up to me, leaned close to my face and asked how much I had been paid to write a story talking about the benefits of the Weyburn wind project that I had an epiphany…

Brian Zinchuk: In opposing a wind project, Weyburn might want to be careful what they wish for

This is the column I referenced in those Weyburn wind stories. While I still very much question wind generation in a macro sense, I definitely had an epiphany when it came to NIMBY and the Weyburn wind project being presented by Enbridge. If an energy project can’t get built by an oil town, what’s going to happen when we want to start building reactors? Or a major pipeline is proposed?

And on Sunday, I stopped at the Bekevar Wind Facility. I posted a few videos from there, which I will eventually post as stories on the site. For the second time in a row, there was zero power being produced as not one turbine turned in the hour or so I was there. The wind was around 2-4 knots, according to weather reports.

Weyburn Wind, Part 4: acreages, wildlife, referendum

Enbridge’s Weyburn wind project open house, Part 4: Acreages, wildlife, referendum

Here’s Part 4 of the Weyburn Wind saga, focusing on acreages, wildlife and referendum

You might be wondering why I’ve gone so deep into this open house. Here’s the thing – this has been the first opportunity I’ve had to really get into the development of one of these projects, and see and hear the arguments from both sides. Alberta just put its 50th online. Saskatchewan has nine. This would be the 10th. So it’s a chance to really get into the weeds.

The numerous stories I’ve written about wind power to date have almost been exclusively about their reliability or lack thereof, and their impact on a macro scale on grids, power pricing and the like. This development side is a totally different aspect.

Weyburn wind open house, Part 1

Enbridge’s Weyburn wind project open house, Part 1: Setting the stage

It was a contrite Enbridge which presented a second open house in Weyburn for its planned 200 megawatt wind project, to be located east of the community. The project has seen several revisions, and Enbridge representatives repeatedly spoke about correcting mistakes and working with people affected by the proposed project.

Note: This story ended up being so massive, it needed to be broken up into several parts just to make it manageable and yet still allow a great deal of depth on a topic very important to Weyburn.

On top of that, there is a LOT going on in the power space right now, with the Tuesday release of the revised Clean Electricity Regulations and on the same day as the grand opening of the Great Plains Power Station at Moose Jaw which Pipeline Online attended. There’s a lot of catching up to do, so please bear with me. Here’s Enbridge’s Weyburn wind project open house, Part 1: Setting the stage.

I’ve never seen a multi-billion behemoth like Enbridge be so apologetic for wanting to spend around a third of a billion around a community.

Enbridge folks said “apology” or “apologize” five times, and “sorry” twice. I checked my transcript.

I expect they still feel sore about losing Northern Gateway, where First Nations claimed Enbridge spoke to them like they owned the place. It was clear this was an entirely different approach.

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